will enable man to
carry his faculties midst all the conditions of poverty or riches, of
sickness or health, of the friendship of men or their enmity.

Discerning the largeness of this theme, many question whether right
living can be reduced to a science, and, if so, whether it ever can be
acquired as an art. We know that there is a science of government, a
science of wealth, a science of war, and mastery in each department
seems possible. Moreover, long practice has lent men skill in the
arts. Even Paganini was born under the necessity of obtaining
excellence in his art through practice. Titian also was a tireless
student in color, and Macaulay himself toiled hard over his alphabet.
Printers tell us that practice expels stiffness from the fingers and
makes type-setting an automatic process. Daniel Webster was counted
the greatest orator of his time; but there never lived a man who
drilled himself in solitude more scrupulously, and his excellence, he
says, was the fruit of long study.

Henry Clay had a great reputation as a speaker; but when the youth had
through years practiced extemporaneous speech in the cornfields of
Kentucky, he went on to train himself in language, in thought, in
posture, in gesture, until his hand could wield the scepter, or beckon
in sweet persuasion, until his eye could look upon his enemies and
pierce them, or beam upon his friends and call down upon them all the
fruits of peace and success. Nor has there been one great artist, one
great poet, one great inventor, one great merchant, nor one great man
in any department of life whose supremacy does not, when examined,
stand forth as the fruit of long study and careful training. Men are
born with hands, but without skill for using them. Men are born with
feet and faculties, but only by practice do their steps run swiftly
along those beautiful pathways called literature or law or
statesmanship. Man's success in mastering other sciences encourages
within us the belief that it is possible for men to master the science
of getting on smoothly and justly with their fellow men. In importance
this knowledge exceeds every other knowledge whatsoever. To know what
armor to put on against to-morrow's conflicts; how to attain the ends
of commerce and ambition by using men as instruments; how to be used
by men, and how to use men, not by injuring them, not by cheating
them, not by marring or neglecting them; but how through men to
advance both one's self an